Customer Reviews

Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

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Until England and Scotland were united under a single king in March 1603, the border between them was, unsurprisingly, a natural place for strife and disorder. The two countries had been at war intermittently for centuries, and many armies had passed back and forth across the border counties. Fraser's history covers the last hundred years of the border, from 1503 to 1603, a period during which the decayed (and astonishingly corrupt) administration could never cope with the local gangs -- known as "reivers" -- who terrorized the district with cattle theft, murder, and arson.

The book is very well-organized. Fraser starts with a few pages on the long historical background, then takes about half the book to cover the reivers by topic: chapters on arms and armour; on reiving technique; on the key families and their alliances; on cross-border relations; on the administrative structure. Fraser gives a lot of details, and plenty of quotes from the original sources (with the original spellings!).

This painstaking coverage sets up the second half of the book perfectly: one hundred and forty pages that cover the history of the border chronologically through the sixteenth century. With the details in hand, the second half is easy to follow and put in context; the writing is also clear and entertaining.

The last section of the book details the uncompromising way in which King James I destroyed the reivers in a few short years after 1603. It is a startlingly bloodthirsty story: Fraser includes quotes from blanket pardons that King James issued to some of his enforcers, which essentially say "whatever murders you did, I'm sure it was in a good cause, and you're absolved".

There are separate chapters on some of the most famous events, notably the raid on Carlisle Castle that freed Kinmont Willie. Fraser is at some pains to dispel the romantic ideas that cling to stories of the borderers -- as he points out, they were essentially a Mafia, with little of Robin Hood about them. It's clear, though, that he finds their adventurousness and style endearing and fascinating; and he writes about them so well that you are likely to feel the same way.

MacDonald Fraser brings to the history of the Anglo-Scots border reivers all the exuberance and attention to detail that made his name in the Flashman novels. Readers looking for more gloriously politically-incorrect adventures from the Victorian age won't find them here, but this book does repay the extra effort needed from the reader. The Steel Bonnets is the most entertaining yet informative serious works of history I have read.
The story of the Anglo-Scots border is a complex and a bloody one. MacDonald Fraser manages to understand, without condoning, the hard men who fought and died, rode and raided across the border between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. He untangles the knotted threads of their family ties and feuds and reveals their part in the wider relations between England and Scotland prior to the union of the Crowns in 1603. He dives into the dusty depths of the written records and brings them back to us red in tooth and claw.
At a time when the border between England and Scotland looks as though it may become an international, rather than a domestic border once more, this book should be of relevence to all with an interest in and love of these two nations.

I was born in Carlisle, England. The second big town of the border area other than Berwick. My father is from Longtown, Cumbria which is right next to the debateable land and I have the last name of Crozier. This book was like reading about my own history and explained a whole lot of things about my home town and the people I grew up with. Just in my neighborhood, there were Armstrongs, Taylors, Littles, Nixons, Grahams and many other Reiver names.
This is a very scholarly book and exceptionally well written. The author must have done an incredible amount of research to put this together. I read it twice, the second time noting how many references to Croziers(Crosers) there were. My father's family name is in there 26 times. Along with the Armstrongs, Nixons and Eliots, we were considered the worst of the worst of the reivers. Maybe not something to be proud of, but interesting. According to my mother(God rest her soul)her paternal grandfather was the illegitmate son of the Duke of Buccleugh(you'll hear a lot about the Scotts of Buccleugh, many of whom had the same name of Walter, including the famous one), so I have Reiver blood from there too. Fascinating book especially if you have a surname that might go back to that part of the world and those times.
What I have written here is just a taste of the whole book. A little heavy going at times, but so good that I have read it twice already and now use it as a research tool.

This book is the definitive history of the riding families -- the Border Reviers. It is a long scholarly look into the nature of these complex and determined families that does not pass judgment or apply modern values in the assessment of their history and deeds. This is not for the casusal reader. It uses a fair amount of old English spellings and can be an effort to decifer at times. However Fraser MacDonald combines this along with his natural story telling ability to make you feel as if you are on a foray across the border and it keeps you coming back for more. If you are a student of Border history or are lucky enough to have one of the riding names, make the effort to read this book. It has no equal in its treatment of the subject.

Though thouroughly academic and quite comprehensive, Fraser's mastery of the art of writing makes this book a joy to read. The Border Reivers played a crucial role in English/Scottish history and we may be thankful that Fraser has written their story. Quite possibly the most well-written book on any aspect of either English or Scottish history.

Frasier is quite a writer - best in others of his works where he can use his talented imagination. And as a reporter of his own exploits in Burma during the war, his ability is outstanding (one should read "Quartered Safe Out Here").
However, here in "Steel Bonnets" his hands are tied by tiresome reality and a remove of 400 years. Fraser admits this book is not a primer or even a text for college study, but it is a recount of his research and written with nostalgic favor since he comes from the border area himself. Mr. Fraser has great pride in his background and home, and he repeats the stories as faithfully as anyone could. The problem with "Bonnets" is that it hasn't much of a story.
In the first six pages of the book all to be said is done; the remainder is elaboration on who, when and where. Bandits raid other people's farms and towns, burning, stealing, killing, etc.. Generations of upwards to thirty families continue this insanity until Scotland is joined to England in about 1605 or so with James VI and I.
IF you ARE related to "border riding" English/Scots - (especially if named Graham, Johnstone, Maxwell or Armstrong, Kerr, Hume, Elliot or Nixon) then the book is well worth a look.

As a newcomer to Scottish Border history I found the many forces and families influencing events very confusing. George MacDonald Fraser has written a remarkable book in which he creates order and logic from a very complicated period and at the same time has written a book which is etremely readble.

It essential reading for anybody interested in border history and will no doubt be quoted extensively by writers who follow.

In the sixteenth century, the border between Scotland and England was the much fought-over scene of frequent warfare between the two kingdoms. The families on both sides fell into an armed, semi-nomadic existence whose economic mainspring was raiding the other side for cattle, property, and slaves. In "The Steel Bonnets", accomplished journalist, novelist, and historian George MacDonald Fraser takes on the challenging task of making sense of the Anglo-Scottish border reivers, as these raiders were called. Proof of his success may lie in the fact that "The Steel Bonnets" has never been out of print since first publication in 1971.

In his characteristic animated prose, Fraser lays out the background of the border area, identifies its people, and describes their distinctive lifestyle. His narrative is commendably even-handed. If violence, robbery, and chicanery was a way of life for the reivers, he provides the necessary context. In a land without law, armed force was a necessity for survival. The long conflict between border families, and with the uncertain law enforcement of the border districts, has many layers. Fraser does his best to make sense of it all. He makes liberal use of colorful anecdotes to move the narrative along and to characterize a complicated history.

With the union of the English and Scottish crowns in 1603, the shelter of the border went away; the reivers were scourged out of existence in just ten years by a ruthless application of hanging justice. Fraser notes the similarities of the Anglo-Scottish border in its lawless heyday with the present-day frontiers of Pakistan and Afghanistan; those responsible for pacifying that bloody border may find here some useful lessons. "The Steel Bonnets" is very recommended as a superb example of well-written history.

When Scott says they abhorred and avoided the crime of unnecessary homicide, one can only comment that they seem to have found homicide necessary with appalling frequency.-The Steel Bonnets by George Macdonald Fraser

This delightfully cynical line is one of my favorites of the book. It shows Fraser's sardonic personality as well as giving a healthy contempt for the romanticism of brigandage.

In The Steel Bonnets, the author describes a world in which law was half broken, the sword was the ruler, and woe betide the weak. It is the old Anglo-scottish border. Long a frontier of war, people could not count on normal guarentees of their survival. With civilization stolen from them, they became barbarians. And remained so for centuries. And the tales of their life still remain.

The Steel Bonnets gives a picture of life on the border. It describes local customs, the techniques of raiding, as well as some of the most important clans. It is pleasingly unsentimental and does not regard border chieftains as heros simply because they were successful raiders. But it does give a fascinating portrait of their life. And it does not hide that, if border raiders were vicious, the English and Scottish governments, were not pillers of virtue either. It also gives a history of border politics and ends finnally with the brutal pacification of the region by King James, who as the author wryly acknowledges, was acting in a manner not dissimilar to his victims.

The most attractive figure in the book was the Elizabethan lawman Robert Carey, who deserves to be better known, for he handled the difficult job of policing the border honestly, valiantly, and not without mercy.
The Steel Bonnets is a book that is very much worth reading.

In this wonderful look at a dark and fascinating period in Anglo-Scottish history, Fraser brings the same quirky attitude and deep appreciation of man's inherent rascality that make the "Flashman" books and his novel "Mr American" (q.v.) so imminently readable to the explication of the complex and violent history of the Border reivers.

Beginning with a Foreword that, among other things, describes the jolt he got watching Richard Nixon's Inauguration on television, when he saw Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Billy Graham standing together on the platform, he explains, in typical fashion, that Johnson, Nixon and Graham are all names that figured strongly in the reiving years, and that each, as well, wore faces that might well still be seen in the Border country today.

He delves into the history of Hadrian's Wall ("Any Englishman can tell you why it was built -- 'To keep the Scots out!'"), and speculates how Anglo-Scottish history might have been changed were the Wall a few miles north or south.

And then he dives off into the history of the Border and the Reivers.

This is *not* a standard, dry history text, laying everything out in a straight line,with dates and battles to memorise and all the juice sucked out of it.

No, Fraser skips around; first giving us an outline of the whole period, he then, in subsequent chapters, cover different aspects of the history in depth, and not necessarily chronologically.

He gives us fascinating details, such as why the spiral stairs in the watch towers built by the Kerr family tended to spiral anti-clockwise instead of the usual clockwise, in the process defining and explaining the origin of the term "correy fisted".

He writes of the great feuds among the reiving families, many of whom were to be found on both sides of the Border, of the practise of blackmail (somewhat different than the meaning the term has today) and in what manner one might legally pursue raiders back across the Border to attempt to retrieve one's property.

Explaining the administrative setup of the Border, he describes the careers and personalities of several of the more prominent Border Wardens, lawmen assigned by both England and Scotland to keep the peace, but never given the budgets or forces they needed. (Some of whom were among the bigger rascals of their day, as well.)

He introduces us to several of the prominent reivers, including some of Sir Walter Scott's ancestors, and recounts their deeds.

He analyses the economy of the Border and the reiving system, as well as anyone can, at this remove and from extant records, and shows how this all affected the overall history of Anglo-Scottish relations.

And, for good measure, he includes the truly marvelous "Monition of Cursing" issued by the Archbishop of Glasgow against the reivers, a masterful piece of vituperation that runs four or more full pages depending on the edition.

Not a history text in the classic sense, not a novel, because it's all true, Fraser has presented the reader with a corking good reading experience that opens the window on another time and place whose influences still reverberate in the world today.

((About the spelling of Eliot... or Ellet ... or Eliott...: The family seemed to not mind how their name was spelt -- Fraser lists a large number of variant spellings with various permutations of "L"s and "T"s. (And vowels, for that matter.) He then points out that almost any were acceptable -- *except*, for some reason, the double "L" and double "T", a spelling the family affected, for some reason, to despise...))